summit public schools
Go Blended! Book Launched Today!
Liz Arney, Director of Innovative Learning at Aspire Public Schools, has just launched her book, Go Blended!, today!
Go Blended! A Handbook for Blending Technology in Schools highlights the successes and lessons learned from Aspire’s process of transforming some of our schools to become blended learning schools to create a helpful step-by-step guide for teachers and administrators who…
Adventures in ‘Playlisting’
When I volunteered towards the end of last summer to create a Playlist that would support students as they learned how to solve a quadratic equation, I figured that my several years of experience teaching quadratic equations in a traditional classroom, along with the wealth of resources available online, would allow me to design the most logical, lucid, and thorough sequence of activities that…
Placing Students at the Heart of School Innovation
As a former Summit math teacher, I find patterns and trends incredibly interesting. In fact, I often felt most empowered as an educator when I could make data-driven decisions that accelerated my students’ learning. For these reasons alone, it was exciting this year to shift into a role where I could engage in the relationship between data and school redesign by project managing our blended…
Which Way for K12 Blended Learning? (Part 1: Boarding the Mayflower)
“Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything’s different.”
Calvin, Calvin and Hobbes
Hard to believe it has been two years since we published The rise of K12 blended learning. Since then, roughly a gazillion people have made pilgrimages to Rocketship and Carpe Diem, the feds plunked down $400 million for personalized learning in districts and charter networks,…
It’s About Self-directed Learning
“This is about students learning at their own pace, not working at their own pace.”
– Summit San Jose Math Teacher
Three weeks into the school year, a student in our Optimized Learning math pilot raised his hand and said to a teacher, “I think I am behind.”
That simple statement led to a larger conversation and a good look at this ninth grader’s schooling history. When…
Embarking on Year Two: Moving Beyond Blended Learning
“My biggest struggle in last year’s blended pilot was that while my students had such varying skill levels and learning gaps, I still had to teach to one pace. I kept thinking, ‘If I could only break down the walls…’”
-Summit San Jose Math Teacher, Zack Miller
This summer, we did.
After successfully piloting our first blended program in math last year, we challenged ourselves…